Page 104 of The Moorwitch

I must sell my soul to him all over again, only this time with much higher stakes.

With a long, slow sigh, I take a spool of thread from my pocket and unwind a strand, feeling it run over my fingers, small and fragile. How easily it can break, yet how easily it can become anything: a sword, a shield, a suit of armor. In that slender and delicate thread, the whole of my being sings.

Closing my hand over the spool, I hand it to Lachlan.

“Faerie,” I whisper, “I break our bargain.”

With breath held, I knit my fingers together and hold them to my stomach, waiting for ...something. A twist of pain, a tingle over my skin, some physical, undeniable evidence of what I’ve just surrendered.

Nothing happens. Perhaps that is how magic dies, then—in silence, without a single note of farewell. It seems more cruel than the sharpest pain.

Lachlan’s countenance darkens; I think he did not believe I would actually do it. But he takes the spool, his fingers searing mine for a moment, and then he pulls off a length.

“Then I vow to you this, Rose Pryor: I’ll not harm or in any way exert my will over your precious mortal Norths,ifyou bring me a branch of the Dwirra Tree by midnight tonight. Succeed, and you will go free. Fail, and I will spare none of you.”

I cannot speak; I can only nod. Midnight—that is no time at all. But what can I do, with Sylvie lying here, both of us wholly in his power?

He Weaves the vowknot, a complex web spun between his hands and mine binding our oaths, then breathes a little magic into it, and it is done. Ashes trickle through our fingers.

Tears burn in my eyes. I am nothing to him. I have always been nothing to him. And now I have proved him right, groveling before him, defeated and begging. He’s taken my magic, my integrity, and now my pride. I wonder what more is left, and what more he will take.

“The clock’s ticking, my dear,” Lachlan says. “There’s really not much time for sulking.”

Then he lifts my hand, opens it, and places the spool in my palm.

“K-keep it,” I say, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice. “I don’t need it anymore.”

He only leans back, his arm slung across the back of the chair. “Do you really think you can bring me that branch without it?”

“I’ll find a way.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not taking your magic from you, girl, not yet.”

“But ...” I clench the spool. “What are you saying? I broke our agreement. My magic was the collateral.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was! I said ...”

“I swear on my heart,” he says mockingly, mimicking a child’s high-pitched voice.

My voice fades as I realize my error.

Cold, choking horror clots my throat. My body seems to sink, heavy as lead.

He is a card charlatan, performing sleight of hand at every turn, always hiding his truths and purposes and only revealing them when it suits him, and even then, I can never trust my eyes.

“And so it is your heart you leave behind.”

He stretches out his hand, tenses his fingers—and I scream as a torrent of pain opens in my chest. Letting go of Sylvie, I curl up on the ground, certain I am dying, wishing I were already dead.

It was not my magic I put up as collateral. At least, not according tohisinterpretation.

It was mylife.

He holds my heart on a string, my life’s thread his to snip at the time of his choosing.

The pain fades, but the echoes of it remain, reverberating through my body and sending spasms through my bones. I remain lockedinto a fetal position, breathing raggedly, the tears I’d held back now flowing freely.